Ramblings of love, politics, happenings, and a mid-mid life crisis

Do unto others.

I had a 9:15AM appointment the other day. It was 9:16AM as I’m circling the levels of parking decks when I see one lone spot. The car to the left had parked a little over the line, but I pulled in anyway and managed to squeeze my way out (I have quite long doors) just to run to the elevator to try and make my appointment. I came back less than 1 hour later to find this gem on my drivers side window.

The most amusing part to me is that as I was walking up to my space I thought to myself (I KID YOU NOT)…

Wow. There is a lot of space on that passengers side of my car. Hmm….I guess I could’ve parked more to the right to make it easier to get in and out for myself. Eh, it’s okay. At least I parked between the lines unlike that guy. (-referring to the car to my left-) Oh look! A note….I wonder if its a Bible verse or something telling me to go to church…

I have conflicting emotions about this little note.

First, I do feel bad for getting someone so upset to the point they felt they needed to write me an anonymous note.

…but then I realize that I was completely parked in my spot…between all lines. There wasn’t anything I could have done differently to avoid making said lady so upset.

And when I realize that she just made me feel bad about something I really couldn’t change, then I kinda laugh to myself picturing a pregnant lady trying to crawl over the seat fuming the whole time. (Does that make me evil??)

Then I wonder if all 7.5 month pregnant ladies are as emotional?

…And if she couldn’t get into her car, how in the world did she squeeze her belly in between my car and the guy on the line to the left just to leave me the castigating note?

I thought about putting on the next car over as they actually had parked poorly but that would just transfer the animosity, so I opted not. Oh the joys of random strangers. Would you feel bad? Do you leave random notes?

NVIDIA’s B-vue office was the lion’s share of a rented space in an office building. It was shared by dentist and dermatology offices, so new people were constantly competing for parking spaces with employees.

Matters were made worse when the owner mysteriously repainted the parking lot with much narrower spaces all labeled ‘compact.’ The entire lot was this way, not just a few spaces.

Since not everyone drives compact cars, this was unreasonable. It was next to impossible to turn a normal car well enough to fit into a space if its neighbors were occupied no matter how much slack they gave you. People parked in alternating spaces to have as much dynamic manoeuvring room as possible, so the lot could be at most 50% utilized before people had to start making tough decisions.

I got fed up with it, so I decided I was going to always park in the centroid of two spaces straddling the line. This had the result of (a) giving me a lot of room, (b) encouraging everyone else to distribute the rest of the area sensibly and stop alternating.

The final steady-sate behavior: the lot could always conveniently accommodate more people than it ever needed so long as enough people didn’t follow the rules. Seeing it work out this way was beautiful.

We don’t know why the owner repainted the lot for compact cars only though I suspect the city gives commercial landowners incentives for encouraging environmentally friendly transportation.

Focus: I just spit on car windshields if I’m upset about things. It’s slightly gross but not permanent.